PATU with four Olympic qualifiers to Paris 2024

PATU Press (03.12.2023). Mexico's Daniela Souza (-49kg) and Carlos Sansores (+80kg), along with Canada's Skylar Park (-57kg) and USA's Carl Alan Nickolas (-80kg), are the four Pan American Taekwondo Union athletes who qualified through the World Taekwondo Olympic ranking for Paris 2024.

The LAE. Juan Manuel López, president of PATU and vice president of World Taekwondo, made official the classification of these four competitors this December 3, closing date of the WT Olympic ranking, according to the classification system of this sport to Paris 2024.

"The circuit designed by PATU met the objective set out, as there were 100% more qualifiers via ranking in an Olympic period compared to the cycle on the road to Tokyo 2020," explained López Delgado, who congratulated the athletes from the United States, Mexico and Canada, who "have had a path to qualification with impressive results in the Pan American and world circuit."

Heading to Tokyo 2020, only Skylar Park of Canada and Paige McPherson of the United States managed to qualify through the World Taekwondo ranking system, in which the top five in each weight division earn an Olympic ticket.

Daniela Souza MEX

Souza sealed her Olympic ticket by closing the December 2023 ranking in fifth place in the -49kg with 353.91 points. In 2022 she was world champion in Guadalajara, and comes from winning the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games. This cycle she has been twice winner of the specific Pan American Championships (Cancun 2021 and Punta Cana 2022) and has remained among the top 16 in the world in recent months, which has allowed her since last year to compete in the Grand Prix circuit, with a bronze in Rome 2022 as her best result to date, and two continuous participations in the final series (Riyadh and Manchester). She was also runner-up at the Central American and Caribbean Games San Salvador 23' and is a multiple world open medalist, in addition to winning bronze at the WT Women's World Championship in Saudi Arabia in 2021.

Skylar Park  CAN

She is the only athlete in the Pan American area to repeat Olympic qualification via ranking for the second consecutive Olympic Games (Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024), this time as the third best in the world in the -57kg. This cycle she has been Pan American champion in Cancun 2021 and Punta Cana 2022, in addition to winning the Pan American Games Santiago 2023. In 2022 she won a silver medal and two bronzes in the Grand Prix circuit and this year she won her first gold in this tournament, winning the series in Taiyuan, China. This year she won three of the six events of the PATU 12 circuit: Panam Series Brazil, Copa Presidente de America and Pan American Games, results that consolidate her as the strongest -57kg in the region at present.

Carl Alan Nickolas USA

The American CJ clinched the ticket to his first Olympic Games by closing the December WT rankings in second place with 399.43, only surpassed by Italy's Simone Alessio. He is the most dominant athlete in the region in the -80kg, this Olympic cycle with total victories in the Pan American Cancun 2021, in the I Pan American Junior Games Cali-Valle, that same year, as well as in the Pan American Senior in Punta Cana 2022 and then in the Pan American Games Santiago 2023. He was world runner-up in Baku 2023 and in the Grand Prix circuit this season he was on the podium three times: bronzes in Paris and Taiyuan, plus a silver medal in Manchester.

Carlos Sansores MEX

Mexico's Carlos Sansores became this year the only heavyweight in the Americas to win three consecutive world medals in his category (silver in Manchester 2019, gold in Guadalajara 2022 and silver in Baku 2023), in addition to becoming champion of the Pan American Games Santiago 2023. Sansores closed the qualification period for Paris 2024 via WT Olympic ranking in second place with 440.21 points, only surpassed by the representative of Ivory Coast, Cheik Sallah Cissé. He has six victories between 2022 and 2023 in the main events of the Pan American Circuit.

Pan American taekwondo will have a new chapter in Olympic qualification on April 9-10 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, host of the region's Pre-Olympic Tournament, in which a total of 16 athletes will earn their ticket to Paris 2024.